Shooting Stansfield are Dauphin’s new favourite act. They’re a four-piece band from Edinburgh who share musical territory with fellow Central Belt indie darlings Admiral Fallow, Meursault, and Frightened Rabbit.

Their new single, We Know Not What We Do, is out on the 7th of June, and it’s proper good. The EP will launch at Sneaky Pete’s on the 7th, with support from Titus Pullo and Waterday. A six-track record, it’s got some genuinely gorgeous songs, the sort of songs that when I first heard them, I got excited because I’d stumbled across such a good band.

The first track, Sign of the Times, is a solid track that showcases what Shooting Stansfield do best; brooding, melancholic songs with special attention to melody and lyrics. The comparison I made before, to early Frightened Rabbit and late Meursault, stands well with Greater or Lesser, which has  a bit more of a beat than the opener, but stays the course in terms of subject matter and tone. With the constant mixture of acoustic and clean guitar, background harmonies, and the beautiful voice of their frontman, they’ve discovered a niche sound. It’s not incredibly unique, but it’s certainly their own.

It’s tracks like Blue Turns Black and There Are No Greater Times that provide the meat on the bones of this record, though. The former is an uptempo indie folk track, matching locomotive percussion with building melodies and a sub-anthemic chorus. The latter is a musically downbeat, but lyrically sublime song with shades of Neil Pennycook in the writing. Both tracks lift the EP up from being a good debut to a really great one.

We Know Not What We Do is out in just over a week, on the 7th of June. You can find a bunch of tracks by Shooting Stansfield on their Soundcloud page – I reccomend The Salt and the Earth.

Today’s Song of the Day is Red Weather by Glaswegian three-piece Herculean. It’s taken from their new EP, release recently. Enjoy.

I try not to go off topic but occasionally, when someone asks nicely and their music is wonderful, I make exceptions. I’m only human after all. Today’s exception is Time Travels, an ‘indie-pop/neo-Americana’ band from Kingston, New York.

Their new single, Secret, can be procured via their Bandcamp,as of yesterday. I’m already fond of the record – mellow indie rock with incisive lyrics and catchy melodies. I’m not sure how Americana they really are – to my head Americana is NeilYoung and lonesome Hotel California guitar solos in the desert – but it’s all lovely. The title track is an excellently written song, containing a great pop hook. Whilst the whole EP is brilliant – so warm and honeyed that it sort of melted into one on my first listen – but my other highlight was closer Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?, a nostalgic and sweet coda for a thoughroughly reccomendable EP.

Here at Dauphin Towers, we’ve been listening intently to the debut EP from The Streams. They’re based in Stirling – and are launching their debut release alongside The Twilight Sad at The Tolbooth on the 27th of April.

They’ve had some impressive press coverage in the Scottish underground media so far – including an interview here in The Journal. But tonight is the first time I’ve laid my ears upon them.

It’s buttoned-down no-nonsense rock from start to finish. Enough emotion and smarts to satisfy the more discerning listener, but accompanied with plenty of guitar screams and big crashing drum-driven crescendos to rouse even the most indifferent gig goers. Whilst opening song Lemon Haze keeps close to the conventional indie rock/noise rock soundboard, second track Show Me The Forest is loud, abrasive and thundery –  a combination which creates a complimentary brace of songs for the front of the EP. Closing track Walls follows a more post-rock path – blending a gradually building, pared back song into something bigger, something louder.

I’ve always got a soft spot for bands that try and push forward with more than just one genre sound – and The Streams are certainly doing that, with influences from noise rock, indie and post-rock that come together to remind me of bands like Op and The Winter Tradition. A find well worth keeping an eye on.

Tonight’s Song of the Day is the single Mesosphere by Letters to Fiesta. It’s a new single, and the band are playing in Edinburgh in a fortnight’s time at Cab Vol. Here’s their website.

Panda Su did a live session for FreshAir and it’s on video and everything. I bloody love the internet. My colleagues at Nanu Nanu popped the whole set online here.

Tonight I saw The Beautiful Word play at The Forest Café on Tollcross. I’ve barely been in the venue since it opened at the bottom of my road, so it’s been a night of firsts. Doubly so, in fact, because I’m writing this review on my phone at the same time as the band is performing.

Hence, the formatting might be a little askew.

Although I covered the band in my must recent Lucky Dip, I owed them a proper review. When Emily offered me their gig, then, I tried my best to make it down my stairs and sit at one of the backgammon-patterned tables to watch these self-heralded purveyors of “mystery pop”.

Their sound, somewhere between the twee pop ouvre of We See Lights and the indie pop of Lost Telegrams, suits them well. They’ve got the glockenspiel-rock DIY image nailed, and the whole gig is very carefree and laid-back; you can always tell when an act is playing for the joy of making sounds.

They’ve two singles out right now, both concerning excellently written, unique compositions. Their track Emily has been a particular highlight of their set so far, though there hasn’t been one I haven’t enjoyed. The combination of acoustic percussion, clean guitars, chiptune-esque keys and gorgeous twin female vocals makes for a really nice package, though it’s one that’s showcased more when they place the harmonies and rock melodies front-and-centre, perhaps like the late Run/Lucky/Free.

Those are my two cents. Please comment or share this piece if you liked it.

It’s time for a Lucky Dip – a feature in which I talk about and introduce acts that I either haven’t got the time to do write a full review of (blame coursework) or there isn’t a specific release to talk about. Let’s get going!

Me, You and Thomas are a dreamy lo-fi threepiece from Bristol with artwork that looks like a prop from High Fidelity. Actually, the record shop in that film probably would have sold this, it’s right up John Cusack/Nick Hornby’s street. Their new single is out April 8th.

The Beautiful Word are releasing their debut album. Before that happens, there’s a single out in a fortnight – supported by this lovely stop-motion video made by the band themselves. Enjoy all the coloured paper.

That delightful racket in the video is the work of Oracle O, an Irish/Danish duo operating out of Copenhagen. They release their debut album Cracking The Eyes on April Fool’s Day, though since I started getting random emails from record companies in Denmark and the Netherlands, I’ve been listening to it for quite some time. It’s proper good, though I feel I might be stretching the boundaries of my ‘Edinburgh-only’ rule a little far if I ran a full review on it.

Finally, a band from Dunfermline. In my three years of blogging on the Edinburgh music scene we’ve never had a band from Dunfermline. Middleton Hall are contemporaries of Glasgow indie pop kids French Wives and are releasing their debut EP on the 2nd of April – as the first ever release on Twin City Records.

Today’s Song of the Day is Yew, an acoustic project who’ve just released their debut EP, The Live Session. It’s pretty lovely, but you might need to turn your volume up a bit to get the full experience.

One of our favourite Edinburgh acts, Run/Lucky/Free, are breaking up. They’ve released a final EP, Let Me Go as a swansong. May they fare well in future endeavours.

Since I saw them live last year, their EP The Factory has been a record I’ve genuinely returned to time and again. So it was with sadness that I got the email telling me about their latest and last release.

The EP was recorded last May, and includes four top drawer tracks. The opener, title track Let Me Go, is song very much in the mould of previous releases; excellent vocals and upbeat guitar melodies.

The contemplative Red Blood, Blue Heart sets up melancholy before the run into record highlight North, a building and climactic song which is probably one of the best songs they’ve written. Closing the EP is the darker, guitar-driven Symmetry. Again, each song wonderfully platforms Rachel’s passionate vocals.

Seeing as their won’t be anymore, I’d encourage everyone to get this EP and the band’s previous ones – they’re all free on their Bandcamp.